Mellowby African Exfoliating Net

Your washcloth is not exfoliating you. Neither is your loofah. They move soapy water around and leave the dead layer exactly where it was — which is why the same rough patches are still there when you get out.

A net is different. It is a mesh of twisted, knotted cord, and every knot is an edge.

• It actually lifts the dead layer. Stretched across the skin, the knots take the buildup with them instead of sliding over it.
• Long enough to reach your own back. Stretches to around 40 inches — across the shoulder blades, down the legs, between the toes, without changing your grip.
• The flexible, double-knotted kind. Not the stiff copies that feel like sandpaper and get abandoned after a week.
• It dries. Open mesh, hung up, dries in minutes. A loofah stays damp between showers — that is the difference that matters.
• Lathers on barely any soap. A bar or a bottle lasts noticeably longer than it did.
• Two to five years from one net. Rinse it, hang it. That is the entire maintenance routine.

Four colours — one each, so nobody in the house has to share.